


like a real friend

by isopsephy



Category: The Solve It Squad - Tin Can Brothers
Genre: Canon typical drug use, Drug Withdrawal, Gen, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 18:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19234507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isopsephy/pseuds/isopsephy
Summary: Withdrawal in the Posse Wagon: not Esther's worst day but definitely not her best either.





	like a real friend

**Author's Note:**

> as Toni Morrison said "if you can't find the found family cuddle puddle you want to read you have to write it"

Esther could see what was coming and for once so could everyone else.   Camille kicked them to the curb because, to the surprise of no one except Keith, his flirting wasn’t enough to balance out an ersatz haunting.  

They all ended up piled back into the van driving four towns over to the next hotel.  On the way there Esther started to feel bad. 

It felt like the flu washing over her in stronger and stronger waves until it swamps her.  It was withdrawal. Of course it was. She knew what withdrawal felt like and it is no surprise that going cold turkey on a delicate cocktail of uppers, downers and at least one substance with hallucinogenic properties felt bad.  

She also knew if she explained that to Scrags he'd let her have what she needed to get well.  He's a softy.  Still she doesn't ask for any of it. Because to be honest the hurt is doing a pretty good job of flipping the off switches in her brain. The ache and the nausea and the cold sweat are swallowing up all the little trees that try to grow in her head.  

It was overwriting the feeling of being back in that basement. The young and scared and shitty feeling of creeping through the dark and inhaling the mnemonic scent of blood.  She remembered nightmares about that basement.  

It was easier to press her forehead to the cool car window and let all the bad physical stuff overtake the brain stuff while the gang bickered about the radio and whether they should stop for snacks. Her silence couldn't go unnoticed forever though.  
Gwen in the seat next to her asked, "Esther are you okay?”

She wanted to say she was fine but she had to grapple with the feeling that her jaw was locked shut or her teeth were chattering or she'd puke if she tried to talk and when she didn't answer Gwen pulled at her shoulder and it was too much, suddenly, to support her own weight.  

She sagged out of the shoulder belt and into Gwen's lap.

“Esther?" Gwen sounded panicked and Esther tried to be reassuring by patting her knee but her hand was shaking so she didn't think it worked very well.

Gwen brushed the hair out of her face and Esther felt her notice the sweat soaked shirt and knew Gwen was really going to start freaking out.  

Jinkies it was fucking annoying to know things again without really trying to know them. 

"Esther seriously what wrong?" Gwen's voice was steadily getting higher but Esther was too busy breathing through her nose to answer her.

She heard Scrags twist around in the passenger seat and felt the little course corrections Keith was making that meant he was watching them in the rearview mirror more than was strictly safe.

"What's going on?" Keith said. "Should I pull over?”

"No we're in the middle of nowhere--what if she needs a doctor?" Gwen said.  

Esther was pretty sure they weren't in the middle of nowhere because while she couldn't read them there were fairly regular road signs with fast food logo colored blobs on them and if you're near a KFC you're not really outside of civilization. 

"Just keep driving," Scrags said. "Esther are you ok?”

Esther loves her stupid friends but they are terrible detectives sometimes.  They never solve anything without her help including the case of addict-stops-using-drugs-and-has-a-bad-time. She focused on talking just loudly and clearly enough to be heard.

"Shouldn't've gone cold turkey. Feels bad.”

There was a moment of silence while her friends processed. Keith sucked in a breath that whistled through his teeth.

"Shit Scrags," Gwen said.

"Shit Esther I'm sorry I didn't think—"

She waved him off before he could spiral any further. It wasn't all his fault anyway. 

"S'ok."  She dragged her hand over her sweaty face to cover her mouth for a moment.  Fuck she felt terrible.

"Are you gonna barf?" Keith asked probably still watching them in the rearview. "Should I pull over?”  
"C'n barf in my hat, s'fine," Esther mumbled trying to make them laugh and failing by dint of not being able to open her eyes or enunciate.

"Esther? Are you--" She could hear Scrags on the verge of freaking out.

"Not gonna barf. Gwen wouldn't like it if I barfed on her." That actually did make Keith chuckle and Gwen cluck her tongue which made it a successful joke. 

Scrags said huffily "Ok fine that's settled," and she was annoying Scrags by being flip so everything was as it should be. "What do you want us to do? How can we help?" he asked.

She reached one hand toward the front seat and made a grabby gesture.  He sighed and probably looked at Gwen over her head.  Esther held her fingers close together in the internationally agreed upon sign for 'just a little bit of substance abuse please sir'.  

He pushed the plastic bags containing the mess he'd made of her medicine cabinet into her hand.She held all of it close to her face and did some quick mental calculations.  She rifled thought the bag still lying across Gwen's lap.  She tossed back one pill and bit another in half to swallow and then lay still for a few moments waiting for those to settle.

"Do you want one of these?" Gwen opened her bag near Esther's face and Esther cracked one eye open to focus on a full mini-bar's worth of bottles.  Of course Gwen had raided the honey moon suite before they'd left.  

She grinned and rolled over to reach up and touch Gwen face with a probably pretty clammy hand.  

"This is why you're my favorite,” Esther said.

The icy sting of vodka was a solid chase for the pills.  The aches and nausea were fading although she felt clearer than usual and it was still unsettling. 

Pot would be the cherry on top of this rebalancing cocktail but her hands were still trembling badly enough to be useless.

Scrags turned around in the front seat again, "How are you? Can I help?”

She held up the baggie of weed. 

"You remember how to roll Mr. FBI?”

He winced but reached out to take the bag, "I don't know.”

"You could steer the car and Keith could do it." Esther suggested folding one arm over her eyes to block oncoming headlights.

"That sounds like a bad idea." Scrags said.

"Well Gwen's never been able to roll a decent joint so—"

Keith reached for the bag, "I think I can do it and steer with my knees.”

Scrags held the bag as far from Keith as possible, "And we've found the worst possible option! I'll do it all right?”  
The car fell silent with a familiar anticipation.  Hassling Scrags really was a drug in its own right.

"Fuck," Scrags said.

"Did you fuck it up?" Gwen asked.

"C'mon Scrags it's not that hard," Keith said glancing over at where Scrags was hunched over the atlas he had pulled from under the seat.

"Scrags I'm dying and it's all your fault," Esther said.

"Ok none of you are being helpful? Everybody just shut up and let me--" Scrags trailed off.

Silence reigned again and this time Scrags managed to roll a decent joint that he passed back to Esther.

It took her several attempts to get the lighter to catch and then the exhale of smoke made the van really feel like home again.

Scrags was unsurprisingly still in buzzkill mode and rolled the window down.

"Aw man," Keith said.

"Nope. Not happening," Scrags said letting the cool wind whip the smoke out of the car. 

Between the air and the smoke Esther felt restored enough to sit up off of Gwen's lap.

At the hotel they let Scraggs do the talking to get them the one remaining room. Esther hung back behind Gwen and Keith. Her sweaty, shaky zombie vibe was probably unsettling. It was a nice change of pace when the staff were vaguely suspicious of them instead of just being incredibly suspicious.     
Once they got to the room Gwen turned to Esther and said, "I think you would feel better if you showered. Do you have pajamas?” She started rifling through Esther’s bag.

Esther considered arguing on principle but Gwen wasn't wrong, she did feel clammy and miserable, so she acquiesced.  

She'd forgotten the feeling of being everybody's kid sister.  It's annoying and comforting all at once.  She leaned against bathroom doorframe and watched Gwen dig around in her satchel.

"There's nothing in here but drugs," Gwen said.

“Duh."

"You don't have a clean shirt?”

"Shirts take up valuable drug real estate.  Besides I always wear the same thing so--" Esther shrugged.

"Do you want to borrow something of mine?”

Esther looked her up and down and then shook her head slowly.

"I'm choosing to be happy that you are feeling better enough to be rude and not focusing on that commentary on my wardrobe.”

Esther smiled and closed her eyes while Gwen fussed.  She had another option in mind and she was pretty sure Keith was going to come up with it in a second.

"So you're just going to shower and then put that sweaty shirt back on?”

"I have an idea!” Keith said from the doorway and held up the bag he was holding with the old squad uniforms.

Esther flashed a thumbs up without opening her eyes, "Give me Scrags' shirts.”

"Both of ‘em?"

“Yeah."

"How do Scrags' decade old shirts outrank my clothes?"  Gwen said.

"Hoods are cool." 

Keith tossed Esther the bundle of clothes which hit her pretty squarely in the face due to a lack of depth perception on her part and a lack of good aim on Keith’s part.

"Oh jeez Keith these smell like the van," she said.

"Memories!" Keith said.

"THC and carbohydrates mostly.  And fake cheese sauce, wet dog, blood--" She stopped and felt the weight of the other three silently listening to that roll call of their collective worst day ever.

"I'll just--" She went to turn on the shower.

"Keith, get out," Gwen said.

"Right cool bye," Keith said and bailed into the other room.

"Gwen, get out," Esther said.

"Nope. I'm just going to sit here," and she boosted herself up onto the counter by the sink "so I can hear it if you pass out and start drowning.”

"I'm not going to do either of those things though so--leave," Esther said.

Gwen pulled out her phone and started scrolling through Instagram and ignored Esther glaring at her and flipping her off with both hands.  

Gwen was intransigent and Esther still felt a little shivery and not quite up to digging in her heels.  There was room in the tub to stand out of the shower spray and strip.  She carefully set her glasses on the edge of the tub and soaked up the warmth of the water.

She stepped out of the shower in her leggings and  both of Scrags' old shirts which still fell to her mid thigh.  
Gwen raised her phone practically instinctually and said, "Oh that's adorable!”

Esther was prepared for this and flipped the hood up and pulled the strings tight to cover her face.

"Come on Esther.”

"No," she said and tried to look pitiful so Gwen would stop.

"All right all right, I'm putting it away," Gwen said.

She tucked her phone away and Esther followed her into the other room.

Scrags was sitting on one of the beds with his legs stretched out.  He was flipping through tv channels and watching them out of the corner of his eye.  

Esther set her glasses down by the tv.  

Then she flopped down and curled up on the same bed as Scrags ignoring his baffled look at her not choosing the empty bed.

She was close enough to feel the warmth radiating off him but not close enough to actually be touching him.  

He was bouncing one leg a little; jittery from the car ride and the joint rolling and general being Scrags. Also familiar; also annoying and comforting at the same time.

She felt Gwen tuck a scratchy hotel blanket around her and then sit down at the head of the bed by Scrags.  

Keith stopped digging around in his bag and came to sprawl on the outside edge of the bed across from Esther.  She could smell the jerky he'd dug out of his bag.  

She couldn't see Scrags but she could hear him making huffy little sounds and feel him gesturing, somewhat wildly, at all of them and then at the other bed.

"What are we doing?" he said.  He was trying to sound duly exasperated but also stay quiet enough to not disturb her. Esther smiled in the hood.  

She felt Gwen lean to bump against Scrags.  The tv stop switching through channels and settled on something cartoony so probably Keith's choice.

Esther drifted. She ran through the digit of pi as far as she could remember it, not as far as she used to remember, and then switched to conjugating Spanish verbs, and then Latin.  It all felt rusty and it all still hurt and she thought about being angry at Scrags and then being angry at herself for letting it all go so far.  

There was the fear she'd been keeping at bay; that she had damaged her brain permanently and she'd never be as good as she could've been. There was the overwhelming feeling of knowing too much about everyone around her; knowing what they had eaten for breakfast and if they were happy and what they thought about her and each other. But the satisfaction of putting together the pieces, of knowing with certainty that it was all coming clear, still ran through her. So it was all right.    


There were other ways to cope she was remembering or realizing.  The clarity itself was almost a distraction. 

Scrags was now the only one still awake. He was still fidgeting. Feeling his leg bounce something occurred to her.

She poked him gently with her elbow."Scrags," she said softly.

"Yeah Esther?" 

"A parrot," she said.

"What?" he said.

"We should get a parrot," she said."They're smart and they can fly and--" She stuck one hand out of the blanket cocoon to make a pecking gesture.  A parrot could take care of itself.  It could be a good kind of companion. 

”Oh," Scrags said sounding a little bewildered but interested. "We can talk about it in the morning, ok?”

”Mm hm," she said starting to drift off again. “Scrags?"

“Yeah?"

“Thanks.”

He made a noise that wasn't quite a yeah or a you're welcome or anything really and then brushed his hand over her head.  

She sighed and curled more tightly into the comfort of the warm bed.

**Author's Note:**

> where the jink is the jinking fandom?


End file.
